But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes Again she falls, again she dies, she dies! How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move? No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love. Now under hanging mountains, Beside the fall of fountains, Or where Hebrus wanders, Rolling in Mæanders, Unheard, unknown, He trembles, he glows, Amidst Rhodope's snows: See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies; Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals cries Ah, see, he dies! Yet ev'n in death Eurydice he sung, Eurydice still trembled on his tongue; Eurydice the woods, Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung. Music the fiercest grief can charm, And make despair and madness please: And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound. Alexander Pope. SUGGESTIONS OF MUSIC (From "Prometheus Unbound") My soul is an enchanted boat, Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing; And thine doth like an angel sit While all the winds with melody are ringing. Meanwhile, thy spirit lifts its pinions In Music's most serene dominions; Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. And we sail on, away, afar, Without a course, without a star, But by the instinct of sweet music driven; Till through Elysian garden islets By thee, most beautiful of pilots, Where never mortal pinnace glided, The boat of my desire is guided: Realms where the air we breathe is love, Which in the winds and on the waves doth move, Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above. We have passed Age's icy caves, And Manhood's dark and tossing waves, And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray: Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee Of shadow-peopled Infancy, Lit by downward-gazing flowers, Peopled by shapes too bright to see, And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee; Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodi ously. Percy Bysshe Shelley. INFLUENCE OF MUSIC ("King Henry VIII.") Orpheus with his lute made trees, Bow themselves when he did sing: There had made a lasting spring. |